Biorefinery

A biorefinery is a refinery, is processed in the biomass into various products. This is the one material products, such as food and feed, as well as basic and fine chemicals for the chemical industry. The products are isolated from the raw material or produced by various chemical methods for this. On the other hand, the product can be energy in the form of fuels, electricity or heat.

The principle of the biorefinery is comparable to that of an oil refinery in which the complex composite raw petroleum into individual fractions or component is disconnected. Some of these are transformed by chemical processes in other, more salable compounds.

Biorefineries are intended to supplement and replace, among other petroleum as an important raw material for the chemical industry. In addition, could through the plurality of different chemical compounds in the biomass, new application possibilities arise. Other important factors are efforts for climate and environmental protection.

The biorefinery concept with a holistic and quality use of biomass is currently in development. In approaches of this concept is already implemented, such as in the production of sugar, ethanol and biodiesel, where it tries to use the by-products or co-products of high quality. Biogas plants are sometimes referred to as bio-refinery.

• 3.1 Green biorefinery demonstration plant in Utzenaich
• 3.2 lignocellulosic biorefinery laboratory facility in Leuna
• 3.3 Biowert system Brensbach

Raw biomass

The concept of a biorefinery is largely dependent upon each available resource. Discussed are especially concepts that involve wood, starch plants and other fresh or ensiled plants as raw materials.

Biomass is a complex composed of many different organic compounds in very different proportions. A large portion of the crowd make of compounds belonging to the fats, carbohydrates or proteins ( proteins ). In addition, numerous other compounds, but usually occur in smaller proportions, such as the secondary metabolites (or phytochemicals ) found.

Depending on the biomass, vary these proportions. Wood, for example, has a distinctly different composition compared to starch crops (eg wheat, maize ), oil plants (rape, grass, soy) or plant waste.

System concepts

In a biorefinery is an attempt to isolate certain high-value compounds from the biomass. The synthesis intermediate nature is used to replace either complex, artificial production processes, or to gain complex, not artificially producible compounds.

They can be used, for example for pharmaceutical purposes and as a base chemical. Since they usually account for only a small proportion, the majority of the biomass remains. This in turn can eg food, feed, or low-grade chemicals are recovered. After this material usable portions were extracted from the biomass, the remaining portion can be used for energy. It can, for example, electricity and heat for the plant operation or for sale, or even biofuels or synthetic fuels (BtL, methanol, bio-methane, etc. ) are generated.

In addition to the extraction of compounds that are present in the biomass, the production of new compounds from the raw material is another field of activity within a biorefinery. Here, chemical methods such as the aforementioned generation of synthetic fuels are used, but in particular also biotechnological approaches to production of higher quality links.

The three-course, discussed plant concepts are named after the respective commodity:

Lignocellulose Biorefinery

A lignocellulosic biorefinery uses the raw material wood, which to a large extent from lignocellulose - exists and hemicellulose - a structure of lignin and cellulose. Also similar composite biomass, such as straw, grass, and waste from the paper industry, such as, for example, the resulting large quantities of lignin-rich black liquor, may be used.

Lignin consists mainly of derivatives of said aromatic compound is phenol, which could be useful for the chemical industry. Cellulose is a polysaccharide ( multiple sugar) from the monomer glucose ( a hexose ). These may be at different basic chemicals, such as ethanol and ethylene as a starting material for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride ( PVC) or hydroxymethylfurfural as a starting product for the preparation of nylon processed. In addition, glucose is a substrate for biotechnological production processes by fermentation. Hemicellulose is also a polysaccharide, but from different pentoses as a monomer. They can also be processed into a particular furfural derivative, or nylon and other products.

Whole crop biorefinery

A whole crop biorefinery uses the full crop, such as corn, wheat, rye, triticale, etc.. The plants consist mainly of the grain and the straw lignocellulosereichen, which are usually separated already at harvest with a combine harvester. The straw can be further processed in a lignocellulosic biorefinery or converted by pyrolysis to synthesis gas (syngas ). This forms the basis for synthetic fuels such as biomass-to- liquid (BTL ) or methanol. The grain consists mainly of the glucose polymer starch which can be further processed varied. It can be used directly as a raw material in the food or chemical industry, for example. Also the production of biopolymers such as thermoplastic starch and the use as a fermentation substrate is possible.

Green Biorefinery

The Green Biorefinery used plant material such as grass, clover, alfalfa or immature (green ) grain from agriculture. A major difference to the other two concepts is that the fresh plant is used with ingredients that differs significantly from wood or abgereiften plants. The first processing step is the pressing of the vegetable juice. The press cake contains primarily fibers ( cellulose), as well as starch, dyes and pigments. In the press juice, proteins, amino acids, organic acids, etc. find. This could be isolated, for example, products such as lactic acid, amino acids, ethanol, etc.. The press cake can be used as feed material for the production of syngas and biogas or for the production of chemical compounds.

Examples

Green biorefinery demonstration plant in Utzenaich

In Austria, a Green Biorefinery was opened as a demonstration plant in May 2009. It is used silage, to be derived from the amino acids and lactic acid. Fixed Shares will be converted into energy in a biogas plant. It can be processed per hour 4 t silage per hour or 100 l press juice. 150 to 210 Kg lactic acid and from 80 to 120 kg crude protein (amino acids ) can be obtained per ton of silage dry matter. The aim is to gain insights that support the design of industrial plants.

Lignocellulosic biorefinery laboratory facility in Leuna

In one of the Agency for Renewable Raw Materials eV coordinated project have been developed since 2007 process concepts for lignocellulose biorefineries. In a follow-up project a first pilot plant is to be built in Leuna (Saxony- Anhalt), the processed 1.25 tons of wood per day. Long term investments with processing capacity of 400,000 t / a are considered possible.

Biowert system Brensbach

The Biowert system work with a style similar to the Green Biorefinery principle. The raw material is grass or grass silage. This is pressed and the liquid fraction in a biogas plant, which also provides process energy or process heat fermented. The press cake contains a high proportion of fibers ( fiber reinforced plastic nature ) are generated from the insulation or fibrous additives for plastic.

Processes and products

In the biorefinery a variety of methods is needed to prepare the raw material to isolate certain groups and derive with chemical, physical, chemical and biotechnological processes more links:

• Treatment, for example by: press
• Size reduction by grinding, shredding, etc.

• Separating and isolating (see also separation process ( Process Engineering ) ): Sieving and filtration
• Extraction
• Chromatography
• Etc.

These processes can already be in the biomass existing substances and compounds win. By chemical modification of the product spectrum can still significantly expand:

• Processing with chemical and physico-chemical processes: Pyrolysis for the production of synthesis gas
• Use of synthesis gas for the synthesis of new compounds, e.g., BTL and other hydrocarbons by Fischer- Tropsch synthesis
• Combustion for the generation of electricity and heat

• Chemical modification with biotechnological processes (see also biotechnology and white biotechnology): Use of the raw material or of shares for fermentations, eg for the production of bulk and fine chemicals, ethanol, biogas, raw materials for the production of bioplastics, vitamins, amino acids, etc.
• Biocatalysis with isolated enzymes for the modification of certain compounds, such as amylases for the hydrolytic cleavage of starch to glucose

Perspective

According to a market study by Festel was 2001, the proportion of biotechnologically produced chemicals with 30 billion U.S. $ approximately 2.5% of the total market. By 2010, an increase of about 20 % was predicted (310 billion U.S. $ with a total turnover of 1600 billion U.S. $). In 2007, the proportion of 48 billion U.S. $, which corresponded to 3.5%, respectively. The proportion of drugs biotechnologically produced in 2010 was 17%.

The development of the biorefinery has been intensively pursued in recent years in the United States. In the promotion of biomass each year, approximately 360 million U.S. dollars invested (2003: approximately 420 million U.S. dollars, in 2005 about 310 million U.S. dollars). There, experts expect that by 2020 a quarter of the current fossil - based organic raw materials and 10% of the oils and fuels are produced by means of biorefinery technologies.

In the EU has invested in the research on the use of biomass in the course of the 6th Framework Programme of the mid 2002 to 2006 a total of 74 million euros. In the 7th Research Framework Programme ( 2007-2013) was the total annual budget increased by 40%, so that is to be expected also in the research on the use of biomass with an increase.